


watch til a star breaks through

by jk_rockin



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anal Sex, Dirty Talk, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Teasing, a frisson of feminisation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:34:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27552409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jk_rockin/pseuds/jk_rockin
Summary: Among Francis’s array of faults, he knew himself to be somewhat… forward in his passions. When he fell, he fell hard and without reserve. It was luck- a more superstitious man might have said fate- that he had, at last, fallen for someone who not only did not shy away from his earnestness, but reciprocated it, encouraged it. All they had to do was not muck it up or get themselves hanged before they touched home soil- an easier prospect when not ensconced in James's arms, without James's big hands resting dangerously low on his belly.(or, two idiots, saved from the brink of death and on their way back to England, trying, with mixed success, not to break the Articles of War.)
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 32
Kudos: 109
Collections: Fall Fitzier Exchange





	watch til a star breaks through

**Author's Note:**

  * For [icicaille](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icicaille/gifts).



> For the Fall Fitzier Exchange, for [icicaille](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icicaille/pseuds/icicaille), for the prompt: _Porn with minimal plot – they are saved and headed back to London on Ross' ship, which is naturally the best time to confess feelings. But it's hard to bang when you're borrowing a cabin on someone else's ship and this close to making it home successfully, so a whole lotta pent-up longing ensues. How do they navigate (and consummate) the first blush of desire in the face of all this?_
> 
> I hope you enjoy these gooey chaps and their pent-up longing! I went easy on the period-typical homophobia and hard on the yearning. Title from Chet Baker's _It's Always You_. If I haven't tagged for something and you wish I had, please let me know. Also slapping this one on my bingo sheet, for the 'Sexual Frustration' square.

Giving a lavish supper in honour of a group of men who had very recently been on the brink of starvation was not, perhaps, the most tactful of choices James Clark Ross had ever made, but Francis thought he understood it. The strictures of the Navy gave one limited scope to celebrate in genteel fashion; a little ceremony could hardly be complained of.

They looked a motley lot, arranged about the wardroom table; most of them had abandoned their dress uniforms on the march, and now sat crammed in among the officers of _Enterprise_ and _Investigator_ wearing the best of their surviving slops and whatever bits and pieces they’d been able to borrow. When Jopson- never mind that he was Lieutenant Jopson now, at least until they got back to England- had come to the berth Francis and James were sharing to help them dress, he had pulled such faces over the state of the available kit that Francis had had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing.

Ross took the head of the table, as ranking captain, with Francis at his right and Fitzjames on his left. Fitzjames was telling the Chinese sniper story, of all things- McClintock, Ross’s second lieutenant, had heard about James's bullet wound from the surgeon, and was hanging on every word, evidently somewhat dazzled.

Francis picked contentedly at his food, letting the tale wash over him without deeming himself particularly obliged to listen. He’d never had the opportunity to look at both of his Jameses at once for so long before, and he found it a little dizzying. Ross had kept his hair long, and had put on weight, which suited him, and looked generally in rude health. By contrast, Fitzjames, much too thin, still wearing the obvious marks of illness, ought to have looked bedraggled, lesser, but he did not; he had done something cunning to his hair with borrowed macassar oil, and in full conversational flight he shone, like a portrait of a saint, martyred in an ill-fitting undress tailcoat.

"A musket ball," James was saying, holding up his fingers, "the size of a cherry stone."

"Last I heard this yarn, it was a whole cherry," Francis interjected.

Fitzjames shot him an aggrieved look, with a smile well hidden under it. "Perhaps quite a small cherry," he said.

"Or an overly large stone," said Francis agreeably. James let out a theatrical huff, and made a show of attempting to kick him under the table. This garnered a few laughs, and James went on with the story, gesturing broadly to indicate the path the shot had taken through his body. When Francis next looked up from his plate, Ross was watching him curiously.

The party broke up over coffee- real coffee, by God, he'd all but forgotten the smell- sending everyone yawning to their berths. Ross, wanting to allow the survivors to stay all together, had most kindly turned a number of junior officers out onto _Investigator_ to allow them room, but even so, they were all packed in pretty tight. Still, it would do none of them harm to sleep next to a warm, breathing shipmate for a few months until they were home.

"Francis," said Ross. "Stay a moment?"

"Of course," said Francis. Fitzjames, who'd been waiting for him at the door (with his eyelids slipping shut where he stood, silly man) bobbed his head and made for their berth, leaving Francis and Ross alone.

One the door was closed, Ross leaned on the table and gave Francis a long, appraising look. “Sure you know what you’re doing there, old man?”

Francis blinked. “I don’t take your meaning.”

“Fitzjames,” said Ross, keeping his voice low. “From the letters you sent from Disco, I thought you loathed the man.”

“Oh, I did. You ought to have seen him then. Forever carping on about the weather or the navigation or the dipping needle, when he wasn’t too busy kissing Franklin’s boots. Ridiculous,” said Francis, smiling at the memory. “You know what the ice does to a man, James. How it pares away all the... dead wood. He’s not what he was.”

“Neither are you,” said Ross. “I don’t mean it poorly; you seem remarkably well. Maybe you had more dead wood of your own than I’d thought.” He drummed his fingers on the table, and appeared to choose his next words with care. “How serious is it?”

“How serious is what?” asked Francis.

“Don’t be obtuse,” said Ross. “You and Fitzjames. How serious is it? Is it just one of those... shipboard conveniences, or are you-"

"Shipboard conveniences!" Francis laughed, incredulous. "James, dear boy, are you trying to suggest that Fitzjames and I are _involved_?"

"Well, aren't you?" Ross frowned at him. “You certainly seem pretty chummy.”

“Oh yes, chumminess, that tell-tale sign of forbidden love,” says Francis, rolling his eyes. “Captain Fitzjames and I are not… whatever you're suggesting. We're friends, I'd like to think."

For a long moment, Ross was silent. "I hope you know you can trust me, Francis," he said.

"For God's sake," Francis said. "Your imagination's running away with you. What would a man like that want with a weatherbeaten old hunks like me?"

Evidently this was also the wrong thing to say, as Ross's frown only deepened, and he closed the distance between them to clasp Francis’s shoulder. “Be careful, Frank,” he said, looking intently into Francis’s face. “You’re not too old to get hurt again, even if you are too oblivious to notice the fellow mooning after you.”

Chuckling, Francis returned the gesture, marvelling at his surfeit of good luck. Alive, saved from the brink of death by his oldest friend, and able to laugh again. Not many could say so much. “I’d not have wished you with us, for your sake, but we could have done with you out in the ice, old boy. You’d have lightened the mood considerably.”

Ross sighed, gave him a parting squeeze, and sent him off to bed.

By the time Francis reached the lieutenant’s berth he and Fitzjames were sharing, James was asleep, curled tight against the wall. He’d left his clothes all over the place, too, which wasn’t much like him; he must have been done in, after all that talk at supper. As he undressed, Francis watched James’s chest rise and fall. It was a comfort, seeing him at rest, and hearing the steady rhythm of his breath.

James Fitzjames, in love with him. What a notion. Ross had evidently missed Francis too much to keep a clear head when it came to his merits. Oh, there were worse men out there than Francis- they’d left more than one or two behind- but the idea of James, handsome, dashing, the darling of every party, sparing more than a passing glance for him was patently ridiculous. Folding away his clothes neatly, he slipped his nightshirt over his head, snuffed out the lamp, and clambered into the bunk.

“Francis,” James murmured.

“And who else would it be?” said Francis.

“What’d Ross want?” asked James, blurry with sleep.

“Would you believe that dear old fool tried to warn me off you?” Francis said, attempting to wiggle into something approximating a comfortable position. For all they were both too thin and the berths of _Enterprise_ generously built, there was still precious little room for two.

"Warn you off me?" James chuckled. "Why, have I got lice?"

"He's gotten it into his head that you're pining away with _love_ for me," said Francis.

Beside him, James went very still.

Francis was suddenly very aware of everywhere their bodies touched. He had thought this a fine joke until he'd said it out loud, but perhaps witticisms about sodomitical lusts were not quite the thing in a shared bed. "Surprised you didn't hear me laughing from the wardroom,” he said.

"Laughing," echoed James, sounding odd and hollow.

"A strapping young thing like you, panting after an old gargoyle like me," said Francis. "He's lost his head."

"Old gargoyle?" James shifted as though to turn to face him, but the bunk furnished insufficient room; all he achieved was wiggling his back closer to Francis's chest. "You- oh, damn this bunk- you mustn't talk about yourself in such insulting terms, Francis," he said. "You're in the prime of life."

"I'm fifty-four," said Francis dryly. "Unless I am one of Mister Darwin's tortoises-"

“A hale and hearty tortoise, in the springtime of chelonian youth,” said James. “You’ll outlive us all, at this rate.”

“That I had rather not do,” Francis said.

They were quiet for a long moment. The sound of James's breathing was as steady in Francis’s ears as the wash of the sea against the hull outside, and he could feel it, too, where close quarters pressed them together.

He'd expected James to laugh, but that he had not done; nor had he in any way denied Ross’s supposition. That he had not- that he had instead defended Francis against his own derision- made Francis feel as though he had been handed a delicate, precious thing, a blown-glass bauble of possibilities, which he must handle very carefully lest it shatter. Was it possible, truly? Was Ross not imagining things, after all?

While fragile objects were not Francis’s area, as a rule, the reading and interpretation of sensitive instruments was. James was a man, not a magnetic field, but he had his oscillations and his fluctuations, and he was not, after all this time, so very hard to read. “Makes one wonder, though,” Francis said.

“What?” asked James, barely above a whisper.

“We’ve been on _Enterprise_ for, what, a week?” said Francis. He brought his hand up to rest against his own chest, so that his knuckles brushed against James's spine. “And the time in Newfoundland while the lads got well, bunking together all the while. What can he have been imagining us getting up to?”

A shiver ran through James. "I can hardly imagine," he said, voice rough.

Well. Another victory of observation for Sir James Clark Ross. Smiling to himself, Francis closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

The next morning, Francis woke to the bell, dressed himself quietly, and slipped out while James slept on. Still, illness or no, Navy habits stuck to a man; it was hardly half an hour before James, neatly turned out but with his face still soft with sleep, made his own appearance in the wardroom. “I trust there is still breakfast to be had," he said.

McClure, Ross’s first lieutenant, made to stand from where he sat nearest the head of the table- James’s place, by rights. “My apologies, sir, I’d not known you were joining us.”

“No need for that,” James interrupted. “The seat beside Captain Crozier seems to be free.” He made his way, crab-fashion, around to the empty place. “Can’t believe I slept so late. You ought to have woken me, Francis.”

“You need your rest,” Francis said, pushing a bowl of porridge towards him. “There’s coffee, too.”

“Remind me to petition the Queen to have your stewards knighted,” James said to Ross, sliding into the chair and drawing the bowl towards himself. “I’d have traded a kingdom for the _smell_ of coffee by the second winter in the ice.”

Francis could not help but smile again, just a bit, though he hid it in his own cup.

“We ought to have filled the hold with it, the way you fellows drink it,” said Ross, but he was smiling too. “And a hundredweight of sugar to go along with it, with the amount Francis goes through.”

“Oh, now,” said Francis. “You’ll not begrudge a man one of very few remaining indulgences.”

“Never," said Ross, raising his cup to Francis in a little salute.

Beside him, James made a funny, bitten-off noise, and said nothing. This was probably due to Francis having settled a hand upon his thigh.

Breakfast concluded, Ross went off to see about his duties, and Francis, who had none to be getting on with, sat back in his chair and drank a second cup of coffee while the other officers trickled out. Eventually it was just him and James, who had blushed strawberry at his first touch, and remained pink right across the bridge of his nose in a remarkably arresting way.

"Francis," said James. "Do you find the dimensions of this vessel... confining?"

"No, I shouldn't say so.” He gave James’s leg a squeeze, enjoying both the sensation and the look on James’s face as he did it. “Cosy, I call it.”

Astonishing, how easily it came on. He'd loved Sophia desperately, grasping at whatever shred of her he could hold on to, burdened by the differences in their circumstances. He had never felt easy, never assured of her attachment, but James _wanted_ him, as Francis had wanted James all these months- his own feelings growing quietly, an untended garden, unwatered by any real hope. For all their past animosity, for all that it had come upon him in a moment, the clear certainty that James wanted him had dropped into Francis's mind like a smooth stone into a pool, leaving hardly a ripple behind. It was simply true. Ill-advised, perhaps, but wonderfully true.

God bless Ross a thousand times. To think he had nearly missed it.

“I have, er. Letters to write,” said James. He had hardly moved, despite his usual natural animation; he seemed reluctant to move now. “I’ll want to send word back to William as soon as we make land.”

Francis nodded. "Ross will have paper in the great cabin. I was planning to show my face on deck for a bit this morning; I'll let him know what you're about."

"Thank you," said James. He fiddled with his spoon. "Francis, I-"

The door to the wardroom slid open, and Ross's steward came in with a tray. "My apologies, sirs," he said, seeing them still seated. "I can come back later to clear away if necessary."

"No need," said James, standing abruptly.

Francis followed him out, leaving his cup where it lay. James turned and headed straight for the great cabin without a goodbye; Francis returned to their berth to fetch his overcoat, and made his way up onto the weather deck.

It was good to be on a moving ship. He’d almost forgotten what it was to be surrounded by the ocean, to feel the spray on his face, to hear the noise of cheerful men at their duties and the lapping of the waves. Their time in the ice and then out on the shale had been, he realised, the longest he’d spent away from open water since he joined the Navy as a boy.

He ambled around the deck, doing what he could to keep out of the way of the ABs as they went about their work. A few tugged their forelocks to him as he went past, but most ignored him, and that was fine. He wasn't the captain here. Ross was up on the quarterdeck, talking to the sailing master. Francis went up to join him. 

The day passed slowly. They all did, now. While it was, in itself, a joy to have the time to be bored again, the remaining Terrors and Erebites had already begun to cast around for occupation. Many of the hands had fallen in to help with the everyday work of the ship, and the remaining officers were doing what they could to pass the time; Little had become very intent on Jopson retaining his field promotion, and had accordingly started taking him through the mathematics he'd need to sit the lieutenant's exam. Jopson seemed to be taking this patiently, with very little mention of how much navigational knowledge he'd picked up in Francis's service.

Francis had yet to find an occupation for himself, and he'd not have found one that day. His head was full of James. He found himself staring out at the sea, blind to the waves and the clouds, thinking instead of how he'd blushed at breakfast, how he'd quivered against Francis in their bunk. He didn't try to brush the thoughts away, but let them sit inside him, keeping him warm.

When they went below for supper, James, who had stayed indoors, was in a much more composed condition. This being a more relaxed affair than the previous night's festivities, they all set to without much ceremony, and as such Francis was not otherwise distracted when James's foot crept across the space between them to bump against his.

James had worn low shoes, not his long boots, and the shape of his fine-boned ankle was perceptible through the layers of their trousers. Their eyes met across the table. James arched his eyebrows- a challenge- and took a delicate bite of his food.

Francis returned the press, then drew away, smiling at James's frown. Lieutenant McClure was talking, telling a story from his time on _Terror_ under Captain Back. The others, and particularly Ross, seemed engaged in it, which provided the opportunity for Francis to toe off one of his own boots and run his stocking foot up the inside of James's calf.

James dropped his fork.

Without interrupting McClure’s story, Francis reached across the table to pick up James’s fork and hand it back to him. Beneath the table, he curled his toes behind James’s knee.

It was like adjusting a sextant to find the horizon. The tiniest alteration in position produced results. It became a game, almost, to see what effects he could elicit. As a point of honour, he kept south of mid-thigh, but there was still plenty of sport to be had in the surrounding area; a rub here, a press there, made such a spectrum of reactions cross James’s face that Francis almost forgot to eat, so occupied was he in watching him.

“Isn’t that right, Francis,” said Ross, nudging Francis’s elbow. “Your lads were patching and re-patching the insides of Terror for months, weren’t they, even after the repairs.”

“Oh, yes, that’s true enough,” said Francis. “Practically re-hulled her by the time we got to Van Diemen’s Land. The beaching did her quite a mischief.”

McClintock broke in to say something else, and Francis drifted out again. James was a sight indeed. To anyone less familiar with James's comportment, he might very well have looked composed, if a trifle flushed, but Francis had long found James very hard not to watch whenever in view, and he knew the territory, so to speak. He saw, with gladness, the high spots of colour on his cheeks, how he shifted from side to side in his chair, and the almost frantic pitch of his fidgeting with his napkin ring. A long stroke of his big toe along the inside of the thigh produced such a fit of shivers that James nearly upset the table.

“Are you alright, Captain Fitzjames?” asked Lieutenant Little.

“Yes,” James choked out, hiding his mouth behind a napkin. “Quite well, thank you, Lieutenant.”

It was pure chance that nobody spotted anything amiss. Discretion being the better part of valour, with a parting press, Francis withdrew his foot. His knee was quite cramped with holding his leg up, besides. James shot him a look just shy of murderous, and, with visible effort, turned his attention back to his plate.

This time, when the party broke up, James did not linger, but fairly bolted from the room as soon as could be considered polite. Francis weighed his options. He could stay a while with Ross, or take a turn about the deck to clear his head a little. No, it would not do. Hesitation was not in his line. He bid all a good night, declared himself tired also, and made his exit.

He did pause in the passageway, unsure as to what awaited him within, but only for a moment. Sliding the door open, he stepped inside.

James, perched on the edge of the bed place, stared up at him, his dark eyes wide. “Close the door,” he said.

Francis closed the door.

“I do not think- rather, I hope that you do not mean to be cruel,” James said, standing. “But your conduct borders on it.”

“Cruel?” Francis echoed. “Cruel how?”

James huffed. “Humiliation is a species of cruelty, is it not?”

“James, I don’t understand you,” Francis said, genuinely taken aback.

“I can think of no other word but humiliation for how you have _pawed_ at me today, when you know that I-” James swallowed roughly. “I did not take you for the kind of man who would mock another's weakness.”

“Let us be plain with one another,” said Francis. “It’s clear I’ve hurt you, and I’m sorry for it. Only tell me what it is that's got you in such a lather, hm?"

Pinching the bridge of his nose as if to rub away a headache, James sighed. "Your conversation with Captain Ross," he said. "It was foolish of me, to hope no-one would take notice of my… preference for you. You, at least, had not."

"I believe 'oblivious' was the word Ross used," Francis said.

James laughed, a damp, melancholy sound. "Well. You're not oblivious now." He drew in a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and turned for the door. "I trust Ross won't mind my making use of his great cabin, until alternative sleeping arrangements can be made."

"Alternative arrangements? James," said Francis incredulously. "Consider. Last night, it came to my attention that you... regard me with an interest beyond the merely friendly. I then got into bed with you, slept all night beside you, made overtures to you at breakfast, and quite frankly made too free with your person at supper," he said, ticking his arguments off on his fingers. "And the conclusion you have drawn from all this is that I know of your interest, and that I _object_?"

James, mouth cinched into an unhappy moue, wrinkled his brows. “You… were not mocking me,” he said, visibly confused.

“No, you great lummox, I was not," Francis said. "Those were affectionate gestures. I fail to see how you could have interpreted them otherwise."

"You might, had you wished to express affection, have considered using _words_ ," said James. For all the acid in his tone, there was a sweet, hopeful light coming over his face- not a smile quite yet, but the germ of one.

Francis closed the gap between them and took James's trembling hands in his. "Call yourself a Navy man," he said. "In my day, you were lucky to get a by-your-leave before a fellow pressed his suit, let alone any murmuring of sweet nothings.”

A queer look interrupted the nascent smile. “Had a lot of suits pressed upon you, have you?” James asked archly.

“Oh, don’t come the maiden aunt now, when I’m trying to use words as you asked,” said Francis. "Not so many as all that. Don’t come across as the type for it, I don’t think.”

“You don’t,” said James. “I hadn’t thought you the type at all.”

“Glad to find yourself wrong?” Francis stroked his thumb over James's knuckles.

"Do not tease me," said James, eyes very dark. "I won’t be dallied with, Francis. I feel too much for that." He licked his lips. "You are too much."

Like hearing a dream in the waking world. "Oh, love. Do you not know how dear you are to me?" Francis said, and he took James's face between his palms, and drew him close to kiss his down-turned mouth.

There had been better kisses- they would have better ones directly, with less bumping of noses and clacking of teeth- but it was sufficient for the purpose. Their lips parted, then joined again, their mingled breath a sigh of relief and joy, and again, each kiss sweeter than the last.

“Say it again.” James brushed his lips against the corner of his mouth, then the soft place before his ear, and stayed there, pressing their cheeks together. “Tell me you love me, Francis. I shall die of it, and that happily.”

“Belay that, sailor. You’ll do no such thing,” said Francis. “I do love you, James, and I’d have you stay with me.”

With renewed energy, James crowded Francis back against the door, and kissed him searchingly. A less knowing man might have taken James’s earlier missishness for a confession of inexperience, but he did not kiss like a man on his first cruise- no innocent used his tongue like that. His hands slipped down to clutch at Francis's waist, and one of his long, lean thighs insinuated itself between Francis’s legs, wringing gasps from them both as James’s erection, rigid and hot even through his clothes, rubbed against his hip.

“Christ alive,” said Francis, between kisses. “You’ll take an eye out with that thing.”

“Entirely your doing,” James breathed. “Fondling me like that, and at the supper table. You ought to be ashamed.”

“Suppose I ought,” Francis said, not ashamed in the least. His hands splayed over James's chest. They had foregone formal dress this evening, and James's guernsey was warm and soft beneath his fingertips as he pressed himself closer still. It was magnificent to touch him. He could feel himself stirring, and that was magnificent, too; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so much as a twitch, and the heat in his blood was like life itself springing anew inside him.

He hadn’t kissed anyone for this long at a stretch in living memory, either. When they parted for air, his lips were raw with it. James reared back, clawing at Francis’s cravat, his eyes wild, and tugged the ends free, unwinding it as hurriedly as he might without tearing the silk. Tossing it over his shoulder, he bent his head to bite stinging kisses into Francis’s throat. Groaning, Francis let his head fall back against the door with a thump.

“Alright in there?” called Ross from the passageway.

The two of them froze in place.

“Fine,” Francis croaked. “I, er. Lost my footing.”

For a long moment, there was silence. “Well,” said Ross. “Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight,” said James.

The door of the neighbouring berth- Ross’s berth, oh God, Ross was right next door, they’d been at each other right next door to the captain’s quarters on a Navy ship- slid closed.

James exhaled, and drew back. His sigh blew cool air across a damp spot on Francis's neck, which Francis could not help but reach up to touch. James's mouth had left a hot, smarting mark there, blessedly low down; James, too, brought up his hand, and pressed his thumb against it, making it ache. Their gazes met again, no less heated, though considerably more restrained with the knowledge that Ross could likely hear everything above low murmurs.

"We should undress," said James roughly. At Francis's answering eyebrow raise, he coughed. "For bed. To sleep.”

Very odd, to stand in the chill of their berth, peeling off their clothes, not touching. They had done this, or something very like, every night on _Enterprise_ , but the air itself felt changed. Francis had no wish to politely divert his eyes from the sight of James’s revealed body, so he did not, but looked his fill; the hard prick he’d felt against his own bobbed, undaunted, against James’s belly, and when James slipped his nightgown over his head, it tented out the front, like a bit of vulgar costumery in a penny gaff.

God, but he was beautiful. Hardly in the prime of health, to be sure, scarred and wind-chapped and a trifle haggard, but he remained every inch himself in form and line, and the essentials of him were staggeringly lovely. In one way or another, Francis had been looking at James with covetousness in his heart since the day they met. He’d begrudged him his grace and his winning looks long before he’d admitted to himself that the emotion was not envy. All that seemed a lifetime ago.

Similarly, that lifetime ago, baring himself to James would have been unthinkable. An invitation to ridicule, at best. Now, to have his gaze on him... he knew what he was, greying, sagging, lumpy in places, but it was hard to feel inadequate in the face of James's open, rapacious stare. Damn him for a fool, making an exhibition of himself- taking, perhaps, a moment longer to pull his own nightshirt down to cover himself than he needed to. When they put out the lamp, he would no longer be able to see that expression of naked want on James's face.

James got into bed first, and Francis in behind him. “Francis,” said James, once the covers had been pulled up. “Would you- would you hold me?”

He did not fit perfectly in Francis’s arms- this was not a romantic novel- and some shuffling was necessary to arrange them just so, with Francis's arm over James's side and their hands tangled together. Like kissing him, it felt inevitable, and very sweet. James did not run especially warm, either, as Francis always had, and it was good to share heat with him. To hold him, on purpose, with intention.

Sleep did not come. Above, the bell tolled, giving two bells of the first watch; in the next berth, Little and Jopson were talking, too low to make out the words. In his arms, James was squirming, rubbing his legs together and moving against Francis in a slow, sinuous wave.

“You’ll never settle, wriggling away like that,” Francis said.

“Not settling is the problem entire,” James grumbled.

Francis chuckled, rueful. His own ardour had cooled enough that, as he was, he could probably sleep, but knowing how James was still affected- his excitement palpable in every movement of his body- stirred him again most inconveniently. "We're on a vessel of her Majesty's Navy," he said. "Alongside Ross's cabin, and I'm sorry to tell you, his hearing is quite keen.”

“But if we were quiet-”

“No, James,” Francis murmured. He squeezed James’s hand. “You know how it is, there are no secrets on a ship.”

James was silent for a minute. “It’s not that you don't-” he said, and swallowed. “You do, you know, want to. Do you not?” he asked.

Letting go of James’s fingers, Francis let his hand drift down to his waist, and pulled him close, pressing his own erection against James’s backside. “I would like it of all things,” he said.

A soft sound came from low in James’s throat, and he arched back against Francis, flattening the soles of his feet against Francis’s calves. “Please, Francis,” James moaned. “We can. I can be quiet.”

“Not in your wheelhouse, I’d have thought,” said Francis, right into his ear, cupping his hand over the swell of James’s hipbone. “In the right hands, you’re a wailing, thrashing thing, I’d wager. Shameless. Noisy.”

“Yes,” James replied, "yes, Francis-"

Francis hummed, and kissed his ear. “I’d have you like that, love. Not biting down on the bed sheets, stifling yourself. I want to hear how you want it.”

“I do want it,” said James plaintively. His hips had begun to hitch against Francis’s, an echo of a rhythm both of their bodies knew. “God, I want it, I want you, please.”

“Imagine a real bed,” Francis crooned. “With room to spread out in, and time to stay in it."

“Christ, Francis, either have me at once or let me out of this bed,” James snapped.

They both paused, aware that they might have been heard; no shout went up, and nobody knocked. “We _can’t_ ,” said Francis.

Letting out a rough sound of frustration, James turned in bed. “Let me up.”

Frowning, Francis swung his legs out, and shuffled to the side to allow James room to get past him, which he did at some speed. His cock still bulged through his nightshirt, which did not now look comical- rather, Francis wanted very badly to touch it, to put his hands back on James as he had before, and to do a good deal more besides. He did not, but watched James pace in a tight circle, and then press himself back against the door, breathing raggedly. “You vex me to perdition,” he said.

In silence, Francis looked at him.

James put his face in his hands. “I'm sorry, I'm behaving like an ass," he muttered. "You're right that we shouldn't, I'm just… if you understood how I've wanted you," he went on. He kept his voice mercifully low, but there was heat in it again. "If you knew what a trial it's been, looking at you and wanting you and having you so near, and telling myself it could not be, and now, now-"

"Now it is," Francis supplied, standing up. This time, it was James who reached out, taking his hands to draw him near and pressing their foreheads together. "I can't know how you've felt. I do know, for my own part, that I intend for us to have time, and I'd not endanger ourselves through lack of patience.”

“Oh, don’t be sensible, it’s maddening,” James said. “You’re right, of course. As usual.” He sighed, and dipped his head to press a soft kiss to Francis’s mouth. “I’m going to take a walk.”

“In the cold? You’re not yet well,” Francis protested. “If anyone should go, it should be me.”

“Please, I’m not an idiot boy sulking because his sweetheart won’t lift her skirts for him. I just won’t sleep while I’m still like this,” he said, waving a hand at his crotch, and smiling ruefully. “If nothing else, we have an excess of cold water and brisk sea air at our disposal.”

“Put some trousers on, at least. And an overcoat,” said Francis.

James groused a bit, but between them they managed to bundle him into some clothes without too much further argument or an unreasonable number of kisses, and eventually Francis got back into bed alone, chilly, regretting James’s absence, and certain that he would not sleep.

He must have done, for some time later he woke, warm and a little cramped, with James spooned up behind him, snoring. It was tricky to judge the time- without portholes or Illuminators, the berths were always dark- but nobody was calling for them, and there was no need to hurry about getting up. He could lie in for a minute.

Among Francis’s array of faults, he knew himself to be somewhat… forward in his passions. When he fell, he fell hard and without reserve. It was luck- a more superstitious man might have said fate- that he had, at last, fallen for someone who not only did not shy away from his earnestness, but reciprocated it, encouraged it. All they had to do was not muck it up or get themselves hanged before they touched home soil- an easier prospect when not ensconced in James's arms, without James's big hands resting dangerously low on his belly.

"Alright, enough of that," said Francis, mostly to himself, and set about climbing over James to relieve his more ordinary morning needs.

When he returned, James was still asleep, but he began to stir as Francis bathed and dressed. “Are you intending to bestir yourself, or lie about in this state of deshabille all day?” asked Francis, fiddling with his collar.

“As much as I’m sure my present attire and coiffure would charm the gentlemen of the wardroom,” said James dryly, “I had better not. Wouldn’t want to set a bad example for young Jopson.”

Francis snorted a laugh. “Couldn’t have that.”

“Go without me- more sleep is in order, I think. I cadged some biscuits from the cook on my way back to bed, so I shan’t starve,” said James.

Looking down at him, Francis had never wanted breakfast less in his life. Stretched out in the berth with his nightshirt rucked up over his knees, James looked like a shepherdess in a saucy French painting. Very picturesque, and very distracting. He was very aware of James’s eyes, too, which seemed pinned to the vee of skin visible beneath his as yet undone collar, and the livid mark James’s mouth had left there the previous night. “Remind me why I should not get back into bed,” he said, softly.

James chuckled. “Dangerous waters, Captain Crozier.” He dangled a leg out of bed, and nudged Francis with his toes. “Perhaps we ought to sleep in shifts. Save ourselves from temptation.”

“Hmm, perhaps.” Francis leaned down and dropped a kiss on James’s forehead. Easy, so easy, to take these sweet little liberties with him, even after so short a time. “You’re right. I should put in an appearance and cadge a biscuit or two for myself. Get some rest.”

Murmuring a sleepy farewell, James dragged the blankets up over his disordered nightshirt, and turned onto his side to sleep. Francis, trying to fight down the daft smile he could feel playing about his mouth, went out to breakfast.

He ate, he made his share of conversation, and set himself to puttering about the great cabin, jotting down some thoughts about the magnetic observations he’d been able to rescue from _Terror_. With any luck, he’d be able to publish a monograph or two when they made it home; hardly a consolation for their losses, but having anything at all to show for their trip- besides James, of course, but he could not very well present James to the Royal Astronomical Society- would be something, at least, and it would stave off the hateful necessity of writing a memoir for that much longer.

Blast his inevitable memoir. James ought to write their story, if anyone should. With a good deal of the blood and horror trimmed out, doubtless. Naval memoirs which glossed over all or most of the unpleasantness to be encountered in the service were the done thing, and while Francis had insufficient skill at the embellishment of stories to manage to do so with any elegance, James could carry it off.

Francis had to stop thinking about James. He’d get nothing done if he spent all morning thinking about James, only a few doors away, curled up alone in their snug little bed, hair all over the pillow-

Stop. He glanced down at the page of notes; he had at least refrained from doodling hearts all over it. The notes weren’t much good, but he tucked them back into the folio anyhow, too used to saving paper to wish to waste it. What he was mostly wasting here was time. He could do with a bit of air. That might help.

When he appeared on deck in his guernsey, it was only a moment before Jopson was at his elbow. “Captain?” he said pointedly.

“Oh, don’t start,” said Francis, without heat. “My overcoat’s in the berth, and Captain Fitzjames is still asleep.”

If Jopson kept his commission, his next commander had better beware. His ability to convey silent disapproval with the merest twitches of his eyebrows would have marked him a prince among butlers; a fine quality in a steward, a nuisance in a subordinate officer. “Shall you go below if the weather turns?” he said.

“Yes, I expect I shall, thank you, Jopson,” said Francis. “Do let me know if any stiff breezes are predicted, lest one knock me down.”

“Aye, sir,” said Jopson. Looking over Francis’s shoulder, he smiled politely. “Good day to you, Captain Fitzjames.”

Francis turned. There, indeed, was James, properly dressed, holding Francis’s coat over one arm. He paused, very aware that where they stood put them in view of the entire watch and quarterdeck, and not entirely sure what he would do if James touched him. How had he behaved in his presence before? He could not remember. With some caution, then, he took the coat from James’s arm without letting their hands brush, and shrugged it on. “Thank you, James," he said. "I was just about to take a turn about the deck. Do join me."

"Most kind," said James. "Lieutenant, shall you join us too?" he asked Jopson.

“Thank you, sir, but I’ll leave you to it,” said Jopson, who had retreated a step, and was now glancing between the two of them with a suppressed smile hiding in his dimples. He said nothing more, but left them alone- as alone as two people could be on the open deck of a working ship, anyhow.

They stood, standing side by side, looking out over the sea. “Do you know, I think your Jopson is on to us,” said James under his breath.

“I shouldn’t doubt it,” said Francis. “He’s a sharp lad, and he's been with me long enough to know when I'm happy."

For a moment Francis half expected some pointed question on whether Jopson could be trusted, but none came. Instead, the lines of James's face deepened in a suppressed smile of his own. It was difficult not to take his hand again; he put his hands in his pockets instead, and James put his behind his back. The men parted around them as they walked.

“Are you?” said James, after almost a full circumnavigation of the ship, standing tucked in the lee of the mizzen-mast. “Happy?”

“Bloody silly thing to ask,” said Francis. He waved at the planks beneath their feet, at the men around them- not so many this far astern, and only the pilot, the sailing master and Lieutenant McClure on watch on the quarterdeck with them- at the birds, wheeling in the sky above them. “Why would I not be?”

James bit his lip. Not an especially attractive tic on him, but endearing all the same. “With me,” he said.

“Good God, man,” said Francis, taken aback. “Give it twenty-four hours before you start getting melancholy over our future prospects. What’s brought this on, of all things?”

“Miss Cracroft,” said James.

Francis watched him warily. “What of her?”

“She’ll be waiting for you. She could not refuse you now,” James said, voice rising both in pitch and volume as he spoke. “And you could- you could take her hand in the street, if you wished. Walk arm in arm with her. You could kiss her in broad daylight, in a crowded room. You could _marry_ her.”

Francis sighed. “That’s true, but-”

“If it were Miss Cracroft- if it were _Mrs Crozier_ on this ship instead of me, you could have had her last night,” said James, dropping his voice again. “You could jam the door of our berth and have her any minute you wanted her, and no-one would think ill of it.”

“James,” said Francis, in a warning tone. Despite himself, he was thinking about it- about Sophia, yes, but worse than that about James, of how desperate he’d sounded the night before, all but begging for him. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” said James bitterly. “Don’t remind you of what you’re throwing away on me?”

“Don’t make me think of jamming our berth door shut and having you with your skirts around your ears,” said Francis.

By the end of this cruise, he was likely to be a connoisseur of James’s blushes. This one came on quick, a hot flush up his throat that flared like a gas lamp igniting the moment the word 'skirts' left Francis's lips. It was far and away the finest one Francis had yet seen. Well. Wasn't that interesting. “My,” James said, his jaw working anxiously, “my-”

“Since you seem so keen on my taking my wife to sea, trousers would hardly be fitting,” said Francis. “Go on, then, you’ve piqued my interest. Tell me more about me and my bride, in my bunk. How did you picture it, when you were fretting away over this? Had you given us time to change, or have you been imagining a tumble in our fine wedding clothes?” He wasn’t sure where the words were coming from, but James was staring at him, pupils dilating, breaths beginning to come short; to get more of that look out of him, what would he not say? “Am I to imagine white lace, like the Queen's, or are your imaginings more humble?"

"Don't bally well 'don't' me and then say such things, you rascal," James hissed. "We're in public."

"I don't understand your objection, Captain Fitzjames," said Francis blandly. He turned side-on to look out over the deck, keeping James in his peripheral view. Nobody was paying them any attention at all. "It was you who raised the subject of nuptials."

Even bug-eyed with surprise, he was so comely in his distraction that Francis felt quite wild with it. It took a great deal of effort to keep his hands still. "Nuptials with _Miss Cracroft_ ," James said.

“I said some strong things to you last night,” said Francis. “I meant them. I hope you do not think I would speak so other than in earnest."

The look of bewilderment on James's face shifted again to something open, helpless, and tender. It was a good thing nobody was looking at them; it was quite the least guarded expression Francis had ever seen him wear. "Francis," he said.

"I'll say them again, if you wish it," he replied.

Now it was James's turn- "Don't," he bit out, eyes flicking about the deck.

Only now did Francis take a moment to survey James's general comportment. His posture, normally so upright and correct, was slightly bowed. He had put his hands in his coat pockets, and held his arms stiffly at his sides, holding his coat away from his body. A slow smile of great amusement quirked the corners of Francis's mouth. "James," he said. "Have I said something that has… perturbed you?"

"You insufferable man," said James. How he could look so haughty when hiding an erection was astonishing.

"Scorbutus is supposed to drain a man's vigour, not have him sporting a cockstand every hour of the day," said Francis. "A medical miracle. We shall have to fit you out with a chastity belt, like a maiden in an old story.”

At this, James visibly twitched, and fixed Francis with a scowl. "Incorrigible," he exclaimed, and stalked away, nose in the air.

Francis let him go, and turned his face to the wind, hoping the chill would cool his own heated blood.

It was not easy for two men on a ship to avoid each other, but James did his best, after that. He would not respond to any under-table caresses at meals, and declined any hospitality of the great cabin; when Francis was on deck, he ferreted about under hatches, and when Francis came below, he was up on deck with the dog watches, returning to sleep when Francis tired of the empty, frigid bunk and got up. When they were both awake, he seemed to go back and forth between giving Francis the cold shoulder and following him about, like a species of large, aloof cat, who could not be prevailed upon to allow affection but would also not be ignored.

“If I’ve offended you, I’m sorry,” he said to James, two days into this treatment, in a rare moment alone in their berth. It was early, somewhere in the middle watch, he thought, though he’d lost track of the exact hour, and the door opening had woken him from a fitful doze. James, unbuttoning his shirt, sighed, but Francis pressed on. “When last we spoke- I meant no harm by what I said.”

James scrubbed a hand over his face. “Silly man,” he said. He looked exhausted. “Two silly men, I suppose. I wasn’t offended. I was so inflamed I had to scuttle below decks with my prick tearing a hole in my trousers before I shoved you against the taffrail and did something ill-advised.”

“A man once said something wise to me about the utility of words in such cases,” said Francis, with some relief.

“You are a dark horse,” James said, nudging Francis until he moved over to make room for them to sit side by side on the edge of the bed. “All that guff about Navy men not talking, and then saying such things on an open deck, with the lieutenant on watch in earshot. Saying such things at _all_.”

“The… subject matter did not upset you, then?" Francis asked.

"Surprised," said James, "dashed surprised, but not upset, no. Please don’t repeat any of it now; I’d like to get a bit of sleep, and hearing you wax lyrical about the Queen’s wedding dress would not improve my prospects.”

“I’ve had some shut-eye, should you want the bed to yourself,” Francis offered.

“No, I think I’m sufficiently done in that your virtue is safe.” James stood, and finished undressing, pulling his nightshirt on. “It sounds foolish,” he said softly, with his back still turned to Francis. “It turns out I sleep better next to you, even in frustrated circumstances, than I can remember having slept anywhere.”

Swallowing down the flurry of outlandishly sentimental things that came to him in the wake of such a declaration, Francis shuffled sideways to admit James to the bunk. “Get into bed before I say something soppy and set us both off again.”

James snuffed out the lamp, and they arranged themselves in bed. James put his back to the wall, and he threw his arm about Francis’s middle and stuck his nose into Francis’s neck without ceremony. Having James prevail upon his space in this way made him feel warm right down to his toes, and before he knew it, he was asleep.

The dance continued on the morrow. James took to the weather deck again, and Francis remained below. He gladly accepted Ross’s invitation to the great cabin after breakfast, ostensibly to look over some observations taken while the rescue expedition worked their way Northwest, but mostly, as it turned out, to sit together, and drink pleasingly over-sweetened tea.

It was good to sit with an old friend. Among James Clark Ross’s finest qualities was his sense for when to speak, when not to, and when to speak but say nothing. He had a store of tales of domestic felicity with which to regale Francis, who listened with calm joy to each story of Ann and the children- three, now, two daughters in addition to young James- and all the doings at Aston Abbotts. It was immensely soothing to hear about mishaps with new dresses and gardeners accidentally pulling out the wrong rose bushes, for all that Francis had never really aspired to a settled life ashore.

That, too, would change. He could not see himself going to sea again- not for the Royal Navy, at any rate- and that would mean a life on land, a home. He'd not let himself really think about the future, but now he had one, and would need a place to spend it. A place to be with James.

"You can always tell me to leave off, old man," said Ross. "Let me save my breath if your mind's elsewhere."

"Apologies, James, I was meditating on your good fortune," said Francis. "You're a lucky man.”

"I am, aren't I?" Ross smiled. "We shall have to have you up to the Abbey as soon as may be to meet the children, and to see Ann, of course. She'll be wild to see you."

"I should be delighted," said Francis, quite in earnest.

"Very comfortable house, the Abbey," said Ross mildly. "Always room for guests, should you wish to bring anyone with you."

Francis shot him a look. Ross sipped his tea.

It lasted several minutes, but eventually Francis’s resolve crumbled in the face of Ross’s smug silence. “Fitzjames asked me if I planned to renew my suit with Sophia,” he said.

Ross hummed thoughtfully. “Do you?”

“No,” said Francis. “She’s a fine woman, but I’d not have made her happy, even... even if we’d sailed clear through and been home within the year. We’d be millstones to each other. She deserves better.”

“There was a time when that answer would have taken you a great deal longer to come around to,” said Ross, “and longer again to admit.”

Francis shrugged. “No point shying from the truth. I’d rather disappoint her once and have it done than drag her through some sham of a courtship. Not now.”

“Not now there’s James,” said Ross.

He could not say with one breath that he would not shy from truth and then lie with the next. Sighing, he put down his teacup. “Not now there’s James,” he said.

“You had the temerity to look me in the face and tell me I was imagining things,” Ross said, with a laugh.

“I’d have gone bumbling on with my eyes shut ‘til judgement day, if you hadn’t told me,” said Francis.

“Hmm,” said Ross. “Not sure that’s so, old thing. You’re neither of you particularly skilled in dissembling; you’d have bumbled right into each other at some point.”

“I’m glad I know now,” Francis said. He gazed out the window at the rolling sea, stretching off into the horizon, and his index finger traced a meandering pattern on the tabletop.

Ross studied him for another long, silent minute. “It is serious, then.”

"Not much given to passing fancies," said Francis.

"Like a swan- you mate for life." Ross thought about this last pronouncement for a moment, and went just a little pink at the throat.

Perhaps there was some truth to that. There had also been a time when that pink flush would have interested Francis a great deal, but that all seemed very far away. He loved Ross, and not precisely like a brother- God knew he'd enough of those to be getting on with- but the blush only made him think of his own James, going red when Francis touched him.

“And that is all very romantic, I’m sure,” said Ross, putting down his empty cup. “But now the subject is raised- Francis, you cannot carry on as you have on my ship. On any ship, come to that. Mister Couldrey tells me you were up on the deck whispering to each other like a couple of schoolgirls, in full view of the men.”

“We’re already avoiding each other all day long. What else would you have me do?” said Francis.

“Just rein it in a bit. Stop goggling at him like he’s the only thing in the room,” Ross said. “Ask him to curtail his own goggling, if you would. It’s bad enough knowing it’s going on without having to watch your courtship dance.”

“Good grief.” Francis rubbed his eyes. “James, there are limits to what you can ask of a man. I can’t very well not _look_ at him for the rest of the voyage. He’s my second, and my friend, leaving aside anything else.”

“There is middle ground between cutting a man dead and casting lovelorn gazes at him, and I simply suggest you find it. Surely you get up to enough finding middle ground in your berth,” said Ross, pursing his mouth and raising an eyebrow suggestively.

“We have a certain history, you and I, but even so I would thank you to refrain from making faces like that at me,” said Francis wearily. “There’s been no… getting up to anything.”

The eyebrow fell. Ross stared. “Do you mean to tell me,” he said, evidently working to keep his voice mild, “that I- that this entire blasted ship’s complement- have been enduring you and Captain Fitzjames practically plucking Cupid’s arrows out of one another’s hair day in and day out, and you haven’t even _had him_?”

“This is a Navy ship, in case you’ve forgotten,” Francis exclaimed. “Men hang for less.”

“Don’t play me for a fool, Francis. Surely you’ve at least,” Ross said, making a lewd gesture with one hand that made Francis flush red as a tomato.

"No, we have not," Francis said firmly. "We sleep next door to you, if you'll recall. Surely you know we haven't."

Ross threw up his hands. "God almighty. I've been stuffing my ears with oakum like a ship's gunner this entire voyage, and you scoundrels have just been bally well _sleeping_. No wonder you’re all but going to one knee every time you see the man- you always did go wobbly over anything you had to wait for.” He stood up, and walked over to the window. “You put me in a thorny position,” he said. “As you so kindly pointed out, we are on a ship of Her Majesty’s Navy. As her commander, I am obliged to remind you that the Articles of War forbid the unnatural and detestable sin of buggery, and if I were to hear of any such misbehaviour, my hands would be tied.”

“I know the Articles, James,” Francis sighed.

“But as your friend,” Ross continued, “I wish I could tell you to just tumble him and have done with it, and stop cluttering the air with the stench of your joint misery.”

Francis coughed. “Yes. Well,” he said. “My sincerest apologies for the stench.”

Ross gazed thoughtfully out at the open sea behind them, hands behind his back. “I’m not trying to be unkind, Frank. Just… be careful.”

“Just what is it that you think I’ve been doing,” Francis grumbled.

“And if you can’t be careful,” Ross murmured, “then at least don’t get caught. Much stupider men than you have managed to carry on like billygoats on board ship and gotten away with it.”

This gave Francis much to think about.

Hastings, the first lieutenant over him on the _Stag_ had been of a sodomitical inclination. An open secret, as these things went. Not a predatory sort, but popular with a certain class of pragmatic midshipmen and petty officers who sought introduction to the art, so to speak, without attachments. Under the guise of instruction in the finer points of mathematics and seamanship, he'd shown many a likely lad the ropes- or, more to the point, shown them a secluded nook on the orlop deck where a man, or two, could lie snug and undiscovered.

Francis had never snuck off to the ‘warming-house’, as the lads of the _Stag_ had euphemistically termed it. Ross had the right of him- he’d never been one for a meaningless fumble- but not every man was like him, and there wasn’t a ship afloat that didn’t have a place like that tucked away somewhere.

Saying nothing to either James, when next he had time alone, he took himself on a walking tour of HMS _Enterprise_ to find out her secrets. It didn’t take long. The equivalent place was down in the hold, abaft the port ladder- a storage locker beside the pumps, empty but for a few barrels, a musty blanket, and a long chest with a flat top. Quite a roomy spot, of its kind, but it still smelled like bilge water and caulking tar, still offered no light and little air, and was still about as romantic as… well. As a disused storage locker below the waterline, where sailors occasionally came to bugger each other.

He’d pictured James in a real bed. A big one, scattered with pillows and soft linens. He’d imagined light, whether lamps and candles or the morning sun through a window, so that he could see James, spread him out and take in the lovely spectacle of him. He wanted to cleave to him without surreptitiousness, without hiding, without shame.

No, this dingy cupboard would not do. They would simply have to wait until they reached England and could take decent lodgings. Sighing, he slid the door open and stepped out, and ran bodily into James.

“Francis,” James said, surprised. “Here you are.”

“Here I am,” said Francis. “And here you are.”

“I was looking for you. What are you doing skulking about in the dark?” said James, peering over Francis’s shoulder into the gloomy storage locker.

“Just pottering about,” Francis said.

“Pottering about,” James said. “In the cargo hold, in the middle of the afternoon, with a lantern. And what have you discovered on your… pottering?”

Francis swallowed. James had not stepped back, and was still very close, his features strange and fey In the lantern’s light. “Some species of lazarette, I should say.”

“A cosy spot,” James murmured. He took a step forward, and then another; Francis retreated, step after step, back into the dark nook, until he stood within it and James stood in the doorway, filling up most of the available space. “On _Erebus_ , the men called it the ‘proofing cupboard’.”

“I- don’t know what they called it on _Terror_. Not the sort of thing a captain ought to know,” Francis said. He had dropped his voice to match, though nobody else was currently below to hear them.

“Can be handy information to have.” Without moving his eyes from Francis’s face, James stepped inside, and slid the door to behind him.

“James,” said Francis, as sternly as he could muster, which was not, in truth, very stern at all. James did not answer, but cupped Francis’s face in his hands and kissed him.

He must have done a fair bit of kissing in his time. They had not been especially shy with them, reasoning- inasmuch as reasoning had been involved- that a buss here or there could not make too much noise, and every time, James kissed like a man who thirsted to kiss and be kissed. Francis had never really seen what the fuss was about before, but he thought he could make out the shape of it now; it lingered, waiting to be chased, on the edge of his senses with every press of James’s clever mouth.

“James,” Francis gasped, pulling away. “We mustn’t.”

“It’s the middle of the afternoon,” James said, low and beguiling. “We’ve no duties. Nobody will be down here for hours. We _can_.”

“I don’t- I want- “ Francis inhaled deeply through his nose. “I want you, God knows I do, but-”

“Then have me. Here, now.” James pressed his lips to his throat, right on the edge of his collar, the defined curve of his jaw pressing against Francis’s own.

Francis must have been mad to turn him down, mad to even think of it. What swum behind his eyes was the look on James’s face when he’d spoken of Sophia, on deck. He’d looked as though he felt about ten inches tall, crushed under the weight of a future that would demand silence and polite misdirections of them so long as they lived. That feeling had the scent of this place to it, a hidden, secret smell. “I told you I want you in a bed, in the light. Squirreled away in a place like this, like I’m ashamed of you, it’s not what you deserve.”

James began to laugh. Not a cruel laugh, but something more akin to a giggle. This time, he stepped back, pulling Francis with him, until his backside hit the long chest and Francis stood between his knees. “Leaving quite aside that you have every reason to be ashamed of me-”

“Never,” said Francis firmly. “Not for a minute.”

“Very chivalrous,” James said, smile coy. “As I was saying. Darling, we will have a bed. We’ll have daylight. That’s all waiting for us, in England, and it will be wonderful, I’m sure.” He took the lantern from Francis’s hand, and placed it on a barrel. Francis had clenched the handle of the lantern so hard it had dug a sore line into his palm; James rubbed it with his thumb, raising it to his mouth to kiss it softly. “We will have all of that as many times as you like, but I want you, however I can have you. We can have both. You know that, don’t you? It won’t only be the once.”

Of course he knew that, or ought to have. It struck him now that he did not quite believe it. In the back of his mind, he could not help but think that once they were back home, on land that did not crunch and slip under their boots, that James would reconsider. That he would clap him on the shoulder and tell him he _esteemed_ him or some such tripe, and promptly throw him over for another commission, or someone younger and less curmudgeonly, and they would never meet again. “Of course I know that,” he said, but he did not sound convincing even to himself.

“I never did say it back, did I,” said James, lips still brushing against Francis’s palm. “I love you, you old fool. I want you. I have wanted you for a damn sight longer than I ought to have, and that will not alter because you lowered yourself to bend me over this sea chest and bugger me senseless.”

They kissed again, a mutual sway towards each other, their hands trapped between their chests. “Perhaps we’ll save the bending for another time,” said Francis. “I’ll want to kiss you a good deal.”

“Safest way,” James agreed, reaching down to unbutton Francis’s trousers. “I’m told I’m noisy.”

There was neither time nor the space to get undressed; James spread his coat out on the chest and got his trousers down. Francis stepped over the bunched fabric around his ankles and ran his hands up the inside of those long, pale thighs, and it was then that he realised what they lacked, and cursed aloud. “We’ll have to save the buggering senseless too- we’ve no grease.”

James, smirking, fished a small amber bottle from the pocket of his coat, and pressed it into Francis’s hand.

“The macassar oil. You little devil,” Francis said, exasperated, and had to kiss him again while he got his fingers wet.

“It’s been in my pocket since that night.” James canted his hips up to admit Francis’s hand between his legs. “I touched- ah, yes, there- I touched it when I thought about you. Thought I’d wear the letters off. Thought about you doing this with it, or, or, or shutting myself up in the berth and getting myself ready for you, so I was slick and open when you came to bed and you could just-”

“Let me at least get in you before you bloody kill me,” said Francis, breath already coming short. “The mouth on you, my God.”

“You’ll have to kiss me to shut me up,” James panted into his neck. Francis did.

Inconvenient work, at this angle, but to move he’d have had to stop kissing James, and that would never do. Francis kept at it, working his blunt fingers into James’s body until his wrist ached with it and soft, mewling sounds were bubbling out of James in time with each push. He was ready for it, more than, but the sounds- the _heat_ of him inside- were so worth lingering on that he wished, again, to be anywhere else than where they were.

It could not go on forever. Only when those mewls turned to James gasping “Now, now, get on with it,” did Francis fumble for his own smallclothes and pull his prick free. It was hot as a brand to the touch, and he tried not to fondle it overmuch as he got it slick as well.

A certain amount of adjustment was necessary; navigating around their clothes proved tricky, and James would not stay still. “Not as flexible as I used to be,” he complained.

“You’d think you’d never been had before,” Francis said, and paused. “You have, have you not?”

“Now who’s playing the maiden aunt,” James said. “Yes, I have, but not for a long time, and not- not like this.”

Oh, for light, to be able to see more than the shadow forms of his elegant features, but James was right- there would be time for that. He could have this again, and he would see the shock of pleasure full on his face in a better prospect, see his mouth drop open. For now, there was the feeling of James in his arms and his legs around his waist, and the sweet, sharp sound he muffled into Francis’s neck when Francis finally, finally, sank his prick into the yielding heat of him.

“God,” James choked out. “God, yes, exactly.”

“I know,” said Francis, working his hips slowly. James opened to him easily, no hesitation, only pure, shuddering welcome. “I know, love.”

“You’ll never get rid of me now,” James said, his arms tight around Francis’s shoulders. “Not, ah, ah, not now I know- I’ll chase you up and down the ship trying to get at you, you shan’t have a wink of sleep.”

Francis laughed, alive with joy. “You’ll wear me out before we’re even home.”

“That will never do. You’re indispensable,” said James, managing to sound tolerably solemn for a man with a prick up his arse. “Don’t worry, old man, I can pull your weight for you.” His mouth curved in a smirk against Francis’s ear.

“You can, can you,” said Francis, and he tipped James down onto his back, hitched up his hips so his heels knocked against Francis’s shoulder blades, and set to fucking him in earnest.

It was in their best interests to be quick about it, but he would not hurry, not if all the ship’s company were bashing down to the door. The long, measured thrusts that had driven gasps from James sitting up made him thrash at the new angle, and when he bottomed out the first time, James made such a noise he was compelled to clap a hand over his mouth. He regretted that he could no longer reach to kiss him, to swallow those sounds for himself, but still he would not speed up; even when James licked at his palm and his insides fluttered around Francis’s prick, he would not. Leaning back, Francis groped for James’s cock, keeping his hand over his mouth as he got his other hand around the hot, slippery length of it.

“Oh, look at you,” he breathed. “Leaking like a tap.” He gave it a squeeze, and another bead of fluid ran down onto his fingers, easing the friction further. “We shan’t even need the oil next time, shall we?”

James glared up at him, and bit the ball of his hand sharply, but his yard twitched in Francis’s grasp, and his hips ground down, his whole body hungry.

“When we’ve time,” Francis panted, “when we’ve time, we can see, can’t we, how much I can get out of you. If I can get my fingers in you with it, or if I can get you wet enough to have you like that, just us, your spend and mine-”

Keening into his hand, James bucked so hard he nearly threw Francis off, and spent copiously all over Francis’s hand and his own shirt tails, the heels of his boots digging sharply into Francis’s back. It went on for some time, leaving him panting and blowing like a winded racehorse, thighs quivering around Francis’s waist.

There was nothing to be gained by holding off his own peak. Groaning, he shoved in as deep as he could and stayed there, spasming with it, stars going off behind his eyes, the force of it driving him forward to press his forehead to James’s, mouth open against the back of his own hand in an interrupted kiss.

When his vision cleared, he took his damp, stinging hand away, and kissed him properly, sweet and shallow. “And you said I was like to kill _you_ ,” James wheezed, looking up at the ceiling.

“Still might,” said Francis. Rummaging in his pockets for a handkerchief, he drew his cock free, and dabbed at the ghastly mess between them with it, favouring James- luck had kept his trousers relatively unspoilt, but the same could not be said for James’s shirt, and he was not the one who’d had a fellow go off inside him. “Feel a bit like the ship ran me down.”

“Good lord. If it’s like that every time, we’ll be lucky to live out the year,” James said.

Francis untangled himself from James’s crumpled trousers. “I’m sure we’ll find compromises that don’t overtax your delicate constitution,” he said. He could not seem to take his hands off James’s thighs; there’d been so little time to touch him, and he was so very pleasant to touch.

“I hope not,” said James. He fished out a handkerchief of his own, and was making decent headway with it, though he, too, kept getting distracted by touching Francis. “I hope we ruin one another thoroughly.”

“That may be a foregone conclusion,” Francis murmured, and kissed him again.

It took rather longer to get dressed again than it ought to have. There was nothing to be done about the smell but to air themselves- the little locker had doubtless smelled worse, and would smell worse again- so they made their way up through the orlop and the main deck and out into the cool afternoon.

Ross was, thank heaven, not on deck. Mister Couldrey, the sailing master, was, and he eyed them as they came up the companionway. Managing with some pains to keep his face straight, Francis nodded to him, and walked sedately to the starboard taffrail, where he took out his pouch of tobacco and set about packing a pipe.

The ship crossed a wave; James bumped against his shoulder companionably as he moved to lean his hands on the rail. “The done thing is to avoid one another for a few days,” he said.

“Is it?” said Francis. “Sounds like another of those things a captain oughtn’t to know.” He lit his pipe, and took a meditative puff.

“Oh, very likely,” said James. “We should now treat one another with cool disdain, establish the proper distance. Stick to appropriate conversational topics- weather, sailing conditions, and so on.”

“I see. No mention of personal affairs, then? Domestic life?” Francis asked. “Or Honiton lace?”

“On no account,” said James gravely. In the pink-tinged afternoon sun, he fairly glowed; his smile could have lit the ship from stem to stern, bright as a hundred candles.

“You’re a font of knowledge, Captain Fitzjames. I am obliged to you. I might have made a grievous error in conduct,” said Francis. He leant his free hand against the rail, pinkie finger brushing, quite by chance, against James’s. “You may have to advise me further on this matter; my instincts may lead me quite astray.”

“Your instincts have not failed you yet, sir,” James said, smiling more widely still.

**Author's Note:**

> And then they went back to England and got knighted and took a lovely cottage together, and maybe James happened to commission a reproduction of [Queen Vic's beautiful wedding dress](https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/trails/royal-weddings/queen-victorias-wedding-dress)? Maybe? Who's to say.
> 
> Feel free to come and scream about icy lads with me [on tumblr](https://jkrockin.tumblr.com/) or [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/jk_rockin).


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